RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: To determine which factors related to departments of physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) might contribute to the academic productivity of members of the teaching staff of those departments, and to develop an instrument that measures them. DESIGN: Prospective, inception cohort. SETTING: University medical center, academic PM&R departments. PARTICIPANTS: PM&R academic departments. INTERVENTION: Over a 6-year period, seven PM&R departments volunteered to use this instrument to measure academic productivity at 2-year intervals. Rasch analysis was applied to the generated data. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Measurable items that were included in questions of the scale fell into six categories: research funding and/or experience; scholarly productivity; equipment and facilities; quality of the training program for resident physicians; continuing education efforts in research methodologies and professional organizational participation; and departmental leadership. Rasch analysis was applied to evaluate a new outcome instrument to measure academic productivity in PM&R departments. RESULTS: Twenty-eight of the original 42 questions survived the Rasch analysis and were retained. Questions were dropped either because they did not fit the Rasch analysis (4 of 42 questions) or because application of the Rasch analysis demonstrated that they were inappropriately or outstandingly easy (10 of 42 were inappropriately or outstandingly easy). CONCLUSION: This shortened instrument of 28 questions fits the Rasch analysis, has questions that evently range from easy to very difficult, and addresses six measurable categories that are correlates of PM&R departmental influences on the academic productivity of the PM&R teaching staff.
Asunto(s)
Centros Médicos Académicos , Eficiencia Organizacional , Docentes Médicos/normas , Departamentos de Hospitales , Medicina Física y Rehabilitación/educación , Rehabilitación/educación , Educación Médica Continua/normas , Humanos , Internado y Residencia/normas , Competencia Profesional/normas , Estudios Prospectivos , Investigación/normasRESUMEN
Previous studies note that specific factors intrinsic to an academic department of physical medicine and rehabilitation influence the academic productivity of individual faculty members. To determine whether one of these factors is related to the productivity of departmental chairpersons, this issue was studied for the period from 1983 to 1993. The productivity of chairpersons serving 4 or more consecutive years in the same department significantly declined. Moreover, the productivity of long-term chairpersons (greater than 10 years) was significantly below that of the group of high-frequency publishing chairpersons. Departments with long-term chairpersons also had fewer publications than departments with high-frequency publishing chairpersons. The academic productivity of the chairperson is a factor likely to influence the productivity of the department.